or God Likes the Smell of Burning Fat

"Whether new to the Bible or looking to refresh the ol’ memory, Edward Falzon’s book provides readers with a fun and accessible pathway to reading and understanding one of the world's most influential texts." -- The Front Page Online

How
much credence should we really give to religious bodies who claim to
be the foundation of morality, who claim that Jesus (or Allah, or
Yahweh) loves everyone, while zealously insisting on being exempted
from the most moral, most tolerant, most inclusive legislation in the
country?

The
Sydney Morning Herald reported
on 12 February 2011 that New South Wales Attorney-General John
Hatzistergos expressed approval for a law that permits private
schools to expel a student for being gay. As in other Western
countries, the vast majority of Australian private schools are owned
and run by religious groups.

Meanwhile
in Victoria, Attorney-General Robert
Clark is presently drafting legislation to reverse a
recent tightening of religious-based discrimination, thus returning
to religious bodies the blanket freedom that remains in NSW and other
states, even before the new legislation comes into effect.

The
NSW law in question is the Anti-Discrimination
Act 1977. Parts 2 through 5 outlaw discrimination based on race,
sex, transgender status, marital and domestic status, disability,
carer responsibilities, homosexuality, HIV status and age. It also
includes prohibitions for vilification of anyone covered under the
Act, advertising anything prohibited in the Act and sexual
harassment. On the face of it, a very thorough Act.

However,
section 56 unconditionally exempts religious bodies from the whole
Act in circumstances where it
does not “conform to the doctrines of that religion” or
it is otherwise “necessary to avoid injury to the religious
susceptibilities of the adherents of that religion.” (s56(d))

So
the religious are allowed to discriminate because
God said they can.
There doesn’t seem to be any other way to interpret this
clause.

Anti-Discrimination Acts in every Australian state have a similar
exemption:

Most of these sections have the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card of
bypassing the Act when “necessary to avoid injury to the
religious susceptibilities of the adherents of that religion.”
So if, for example, gay people were permitted to study at a religious
institution, that might offend other students, so the
anti-discrimination act doesn’t apply.

It
is legal today, in most states of 21-Century Australia, to form a
non-profit organisation dedicated to helping the homeless while
explicitly
refusing to help gay, single-mother, Aborigine or disabled homeless
people, so long as the organisation is founded on a religious
doctrine that states that these classes of people are immoral,
inferior or otherwise unworthy of assistance.

This exemption includes clauses in the Acts that prohibit
vilification due to race, sexuality and HIV status. So it is legal
for a preacher to vilify gays, blacks and unwed mothers at the
pulpit, and even to advertise such vilification with no legal
consequences.

These exemptions not only hinder the spread of a genuine sentiment of
equality across the community, but they also serve to propagate false
religions. All a person has to do if he wants to make a show of
serving the public but still continue ostracising certain
demographics is simply register a religious body, plead “religious
doctrine” and the Commonwealth and states wash their hands of
the matter.

As noted in a recent article in The
Age, “the Catholic Church is one of the biggest private
employers in Australia and claims the right to vet the sexual morals
even of the gardeners in the hospital grounds.” Any other
employer would unquestioningly be fined under such acts as
anti-discrimination, workplace relations and others.

In 2005, NSW Green Party senator Lee Rhiannon unsuccessfully proposed
a repeal of the perks of small-business, private schools and
religious bodies, stating, “when religious organisations
interact with the public as service providers, businesses or de facto
government agencies the ordinary rules of society ought to apply.”

Rhiannon pointed out that religious bodies are now performing many
community services that were once the exclusive domain of the
Government, such as job-placement. When the Howard government
privatised the Commonwealth Employment Service, religious
organisations applied to perform the task. But because they’re
faith-based, they can legally recommend a married mother over a
single mother for a vacancy. A straight person over a gay person. A
European over an Aborigine.

And they are operating primarily on government funding.

So I ask again: How much credence should we really give to religious
bodies who claim the moral high-ground while demanding governmental permission to act in the most immoral ways?

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